User talk:Uncle Bash007

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Duplicate English lexemes

Please check whether an English lexeme already exists before deciding to create it. Mahir256 (talk) 18:37, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

ok.. thanks Uncle Bash007 (talk) 18:39, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Why are you still creating duplicate English lexemes? (The query I provided for you lists all of them; surely the ones you are creating are in that list already?) Mahir256 (talk) 13:41, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

@Mahir256, @Uncle Bash007: This discussion thread seems related to the fourth sense of sign (L3622), L3622-S4, which I found today. I see that it's the result of merging alama/عَلَامَ (L625855) with sign (L3622) about a year ago. The problem is that the only contents this merge contributed to sign (L3622) is a sense written in Hausa, not English. with a lemma "alama/sa-hannu" which isn't English either (from what I can tell). Does it perhaps mean "sign"?

I plan to delete this sense, since it probably doesn't belong to the English lexeme anyway, regardless of what it means. But since this is the first time I see words from entirely different languages merged into the same lexeme, and want to ask you if there is anything I may have misunderstood and that I should do something else with it.

I'm trying to figure out the semantic and linguistic relationships between "sign" and words like "signage", "symbol", "grapheme", "letter", "signature", "signal" and so on... Finding "alama/sa-hannu" among these was a bit unexpected... :-) SM5POR (talk) 10:56, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

wow, so how can i know if the words i want to adda are nt already created? Uncle Bash007 (talk) 13:44, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

In the query I provided there is a search box in the upper right of the screen into which you can type a word and it will show you lexemes with that word in it. Mahir256 (talk) 13:45, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

ok, i understand.. thank uUncle Bash007 (talk) 13:49, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

@SM5POR, It was perhaps a mistake because the word alama/sa-hannu are Hausa Language words and I wasn't very familiar with Wikidata that time. I was trying to label the word sign to Hausa. sign can mean alama in Hausa and in otherwords can also mean sa-hannu that is, signature.Uncle Bash007 (talk) 13:09, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

@Uncle Bash007I'm not sure I did this the right way, but I undid the merge, restored the lexeme alama/عَلَامَ (L625855) to what it right before the merge, and then changed the language to Hausa with "alama" for its lemma (I skipped the "sa hannu" part as that may belong in a different lexeme, and I think I saw there was one "hannu" already, perhaps "hand").

Then I used Google Translate to try to find out what the grammatical forms are and added four of them (alama, alamar, alamu, alamun); is that correct? I have no idea, I'm guessing a bit here. Google also gave me other suggestions like alamomin but translated it back to "symbol"; is that also a form of alama or is it a different word in Hausa?

I left the sense with the English lemma; you can add a lemma in Hausa to the same sense if you want; one approach to that is to describe a sign with a phrase in Hausa but without using the word "alama".

But what kind of sign does "alama" refer to; is it always a written symbol or could it be a gesture in sign language? Does it even have to be visual, or could it be metaphorical? A label with text on it glued to a box, telling what's in the box? I linked the sense to an item in Wikidata but I don't know if it's the correct item. Change it as you see fit. SM5POR (talk) 21:01, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

@SM5POR, ok I understand your confusion. As you already know, there are words that can have different meanings and pronounciation i.e, ambiguous words. So sign can mean many things in Hausa; for instance, sign here - sa hannu a nan, stop sign - alamar tsayawa, signs and symbols - alamu - plural of sign/alama (alama can mean sign and symbol in Hausa). Therefore sign can mean a signature (sa hannu) or a gesture (alama). While hand means hannu as you already observed.

Yes, and the words (alama, alamar, alamu, alamun) are grammatical forms of alama and they mean thesame thing a sign in different forms. For instance He show all signs of distrust - sign here can mean alamar or alamun.

Ok I will surely add a phrase to differentiate them

Alama can mean both a written symbol and a gesture in Hausa. It can also be visual or metaphorical.

A label with text on it glued to a box, telling what's in the box? I linked the sense to an item in Wikidata but I don't know if it's the correct item. Change it as you see fit. - could you send me the link? Uncle Bash007 (talk) 06:39, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

@Uncle Bash007: The link I referred to is sign (Q11801374) and you'll find it on alama/عَلَامَ (L625855-S1) as item for this sense (P5137) which is the recommended way of linking the sense of a word in any language to its language-neutral meaning.

One problem for me is however that I'm not even sure what sign (Q11801374) is in Swedish, because the item has neither a Swedish label nor a Swedish Wikipedia article linked to it. It could be tecken (L46712) which currently has no sense defined, but I would have to consult and compare a number of dictionary entries to find out. Another related Swedish word is skylt (L33622) which is a physical board or plate with symbols, text or even pictures on it; the closest words in English are signboard (L327780), signage (L327775-S1) or badge (L14846), but I think there is no exact translation.

I find this a quite interesting aspect of linguistics; words in one language may have several different meanings (senses), and the same sense may have several different words (synonyms). But if two words have different meaning and different pronunciation/spelling simultaneously, then they should probably have different lexemes as well.

While we use English for mutual communication, and Wikidata is largely built from an English encyclopedic vocabulary, there are situations where English may use the same word for different concepts, but our respective native languages have separate words. This can be extremely confusing, such as when we talk about an "event"; are we referring to an occurrence (Q1190554) (something that happens, like a chemical reaction) or an event (Q1656682) (a social gathering)? In Swedish we use different words for these; is that the case in Hausa too? Then you may understand what I mean when I refer to nation at occurrence (Q61130878) as a complete ontological train wreck; it doesn't mean anything sensible!

Other words of this kind are property, point, office, bill, and (to some extent) sign... SM5POR (talk) 08:56, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

Of course @SM5POR, you know, this is exactly what we are going through more especially when translating articles. English is a very complex language where one word can be use interchangeable and seems really confusing more especially when using google translation. We use to come across a number of mistakes because of this particular issue. Editors who are not very good in English may find it very difficult to translate such words and as such, may change the meaning or make no sense at all. So, I believe words in this case should be created separately on Wikidata in this case. Sure, in Hausa, we have almost separate names for each word. I got u.. smiles.. it is what it is.. Have a great day bro Uncle Bash007 (talk) 13:50, 7 February 2023 (UTC)